Fort Niobrara was established April 22, 1880, by Major John Jacques Upham, 5th Cavalry, and located on the right bank of the Niobrara River near the mouth of the Minnechaduze, a few miles east of the present town of Valentine. The fort provided protection to the settlers and cattlemen of the area from the Sioux Indians, who were by this time a broken people but still feared, and controlled the Indians at the Spotted Tail Agency. The fort was abandoned on October 22, 1906, and the military reservation is now a National Wildlife Refuge.--Frazer, Robert W. Forts of the West: An Indispensable Handbook of All Presidios and Military Forts West of the Mississippi up to 1898 (1965)